WORLD CHAMPS OF SURFING ON SHOW

ALL 16 World Champions of Surfing will return to Merewether, NSW, Australia, to celebrate Newcastle Surfest 2009.

From Mark Richards to Sunny Garcia, Mick Fanning to Kelly Slater, distinctive portraits of the world’s most influential surfing professionals will be on show at a unique exhibition of SURF ART running in conjunction with this year’s Surfest.

Newcastle artist Daniel Joyce’s series of illustrations of surfing’s greatest from 1976 to 2009 will be featured as part of his first solo exhibition, Firewater.

The four-day art display opens on Wednesday, March 18, at The Aqua Cellar, opposite the venue for Surfest 2009, Merewether Beach.

The talented young illustrator and airbrush painter began his caricature catalogue of surfing’s greatest in 2000, beginning with the Novocastrian legend “MR” and his 1970s contemporaries Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew and Shaun Tomson.

Inspired by the pioneering trio’s recent starring role in the acclaimed surf film Bustin’ Down The Door, Daniel will display his complete World Champs Series for the first time.

A keen surfer himself, Newcastle born and bred Daniel’s Firewater exhibition will feature an eclectic mix of more than 30 other paintings, illustrations and prints, including airbrushed surfboards, stunning surf-scapes on canvas and sketches of familiar Newcastle beach scenes and surf breaks viewed from in and out of the water.

Daniel has also created especially for the exhibition an evocative tribute to two World Champions of Women’s Surfing, Stephanie Gilmore (the 2007-08 title holder) and her friend, mentor and 1964 champion (and Australia’s first women’s world champ) Phyllis O’Donell.

Caves Beach-based Daniel, whose works have been published in the popular surfing magazines Tracks and Waves, has donated artworks to Surfest Ball charity auctions for the past eight years, in that time raising more than $15,000 for SIDS research.

This year, touched by the recent Victorian bushfire tragedy, Daniel will hold a Silent Art Auction for two of his displayed works, with proceeds to be donated to the Australian Red Cross.

As I worked on my art for this show I kept hearing the news from the Victorian bushfires and all those stories of heartbreak and heroism,” Daniel said.

It made me want to do something positive with my art which for me is all about capturing the environment that I love, the surf.”

Firewater, a surf art exhibition to coincide with Surfest 2009, runs from Thursday March 19 to Sunday March 22 at The Aqua Cellar, downstairs at Merewether’s Beach Hotel (Frederick Street front entrance).

Gallery hours:

11am to 5pm.

Opening night:

Wednesday March 18, from 6pm.

Media Release from Dan Joyce – March 13, 2009
Web: www.danieljoycedesign.com